Have you had a brush with fame?

Living in Westwood, celebrity spotting was a regular thing -- but I'm a country girl and I never got over the thrill. "Look, there's Alan Alda! He looks like he's ninety! Hey, that's Val Kilmer! Whoa, isn't that Elle McPherson? Man, she walks like a horse!"

Tell us about your brush with fame.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Answers

Ummm... well, most of my brushes with fame have been from Indiana
celebrities, so a lot of you may not know who I'm talking about.

Once my family and I went into this little pizza place called
Puccini's in Indianapolis to eat. It was open unusually early. We went
in and realized we were the only ones there besides a big group of
really tall men and women at a table in the back. They were all
extremely loud and obnoxious and were wearing their sunglasses
indoors. When they got up to leave, one of the men walked by our
table. It was Reggie Miller... pro basketball player... Indiana
Pacers? He and Spike Lee hate each other? Anyone know who I'm talking
about?

My father, who is a state policeman, gave Bobby Knight a speeding
ticket on the Interstate a few years ago. Knight is the coach of the
Indiana Hoosiers... he's really well-known for throwing chairs and
cursing out the referees. But he was really nice to my dad.

Ummm.. Dad also was on the set of Rain Man>. You know that part
where Raymond and Charlie stop at the little motel and have to stay
there because Raymond won't go out in the rain? That's about 15 miles
down the road from where I live, and my dad was hired to do security
there. He met both Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. He said Tom was
short and had pock marks (Ha-ha! Tom Cruise had acne!) and was pretty
much an asshole. He said Dustin Hoffman was pretty nice, though.

Other than that... I don't really know of any celebrities I've run
into. You don't see too many in east central Indiana. But John
Mellencamp is from a town very close to mine. Neat.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I'm such an idiot. Did I fix it?

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Damn, I'm good.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Hey, I know who Reggie Miller is ... he went to UCLA, too, and was a
senior the year I was a freshman. I saw him once or twice.

I complete left out UCLA sports people. I rode in elevators with Ken
Norton a few times (he had a friend or girlfriend or something in my
dorm), I met Pooh Richardson who was our hotshot BB player after
Reggie Miller graduated, and I saw Troy Aikman on campus several times
after he transferred in. (What an ugly man. Nose like a pig.) I
knew some other football and basketball players, but I don't think
they were anyone famous.

And I almost roomed with a UCLA gymnast who was kind of hot shit for a
while until she got badly hurt ... but I'll be damned if I can
remember her name!

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I've had numerous brushes with fame myself; so many that I may forget
a few when listing them here.

Lessee, where to start?

Prime Ministers Of Canada: Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark

Musicians and the like: Geddy Lee of Rush, Dwayne Goettel of Skinny
Puppy, The Cowboy Junkies, numerous famous in Canada bands, Seymour
Stein (founder of EMI records) Oh yeah, and the Rolling Stones.

When i worked at CVS a few years ago, I sold cigarettes to the guy who
played the older brother on "The Wonder Years" -- Jason harvey? Is
that his name? He had no sense of humor at all. And i was once in line
in a Store 24 behind Henry Rollins -- he was in Boston to do a
spoken-word show. I had my back to him, talking to a friend, and
accidentally elbowed him in the bum. Hard. He was very nice about it
though -- gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me to have a nice
night. Very very big man, he is.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

My brush with fame also happened in the UCLA area. I was visiting my
best friend who was attending UCLA at the time. We went to some bar
in Westwood, I think it was Maloney's. Anyway we were drinking(I was
drunk) and dancing(I thought I was hot shit), and my friends told me
that Matt Damon was there and that he was staring at me. So I looked
over, and yes it was Matt(a younger, bad haircut Matt), and yes he
was looking in my direction, and yes he smiled at me. I smiled back,
but all I could think about was that I had just watched that movie
with Brendan Frasier about the private school(is it School Ties?),
and that Matt was a complete ass in the movie. My friends wanted me
to go talk to him, but in my drunken state I was still mad about Matt
being that big of a racist ass. It is probably for the best though,
my friends thought he was staring out of interest, when it was
probably out of pity for my drunk ass.

Oh and once when I was ten, my friend Barbara and I were in McDonalds
eating lunch with my dad. In walked Michael Damian! Now my
grandfather was a huge fan of Young and the Restless so I spotted him
immediately. I think he was touring at the time, and he came in with
about five different men in black jackets with Michael Damian written
on the back in red. I was about to pee my pants I was so excited.
Anyway, he spotted Barbara and I sitting there staring and he came
over to say hi. He actually picked up my Cabbage Patch doll and asked
her name. I don't know which is sadder that Michael Damian was
touring or that I was ten and carried my Cabbage Patch doll
everywhere. Do soap opera stars even count?

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

my brushes with fame are thus:

familiar with john waters' serial mom? the house out of which
the airconditioner is dropped is down the street (half a block) from
my house. my then best friend and i met kathleen turner the day they
filmed that. and oh, the high school? that's my high school. woo!

and in mighty ducks 3, the cafeteria scenes were all filmed at
my college, in a meeting hall that most definitely isn't a
cafeteria. i watched those scenes while scoffing, "that's not a
cafeteria line! that's where the coat racks are! that's burton
hall, not a dining hall! ha!"

my two brushes with fame.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

...occidental would sell out to movies faster than you could say
"pissed off students"...their two recent claims to fame were being
the campus for the 90210 "college-years" and the movie "clueless"...

...yet, despite all my pissiness about being inconvenienced, i loved
seeing shots of the school on screen...sad but true...

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I grew up in Maine, so my biggest brush with fame was meeting Stephen
King when I was 13 at a book-signing. Also, my Psychology teacher
grew up next door (or down the street) from Stephen King, and thus is
one of the the "Hall twins" represented in one of King's books
(perhaps "It"?).

Beyond that, at LAX, I spotted Tim Burton and his scary-ass
girlfriend at baggage claim and an actor from "Days of Our Lives",
whose name escapes me. At Disneyland, I saw Jean Smart
from "Designing Women."

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

My brass quintet played for the annual sales banquet for the cosmetics
division of Warner, the year that they released their Paloma Picasso
designer fragrance; she like the music and came by to thank us for
playing.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Mine are all embarrassing.

Living in Vancouver, where EVERYthing is filmed, you see a lot
of american actors. Drunk at a party, I made out with Richard
(one hit wonder) Grieco. David Duchovney and I got in a shouting
match at Jericho Park when his badly trained dog bit my badly trained
but in this case not at fault dog. After that, my friends and I used
to call his tel# in New York and leave the most awful and cruel
messages.
And my favourite brush with fame...A bunch of girlfriends and I
picked up some very drunk little private school boys and took them to
another party with us, and got them even drunker and more stoned than
they were when we met them, which was quite a feat in itself. I drove
them back to school in my boyfriend's car, and one of them hung out
the window and puked all over the side of the car on the way there.
Brendan Frasier. I wish I had the photos.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I have three brushes with fame.

1. When I was a sophomore in high school our marching band got to be
in the opening parade scene in "Born on the Fourth of July". Our
band director had some huge arguement with the casting guy (who
wanted us to show up the next day again. It was a school day.) and
our band director said we weren't coming back the next day and we
ended up on the cutting room floor. Oh well. And we didn't get to
see Tom Cruise because he was at some local university track
practicing his wheelchair moves.

2 & 3 (not on the same day) Sacramento International Airport
I saw both Dennis Rodman (who almost ran me over) and Stephen
Baldwin, who my sister and I took pictures of from outside the
baggage claim because we didn't want to seem like star struck fans by
going up and asking for a picture with him. Some other lady was
already doing that and he was obliging but it just seemed too weird
to go up and ask him. Rodman was running down the concourse and
nearly ran me over as he was trying not to miss his plane. This was
way before all the weird hair colors. He did have that tattoo on his
belly and the bellybutton piercing, but he looked pretty normal.
Just really tall.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I love telling this story...

When I was in London, I worked as an usher at a big West End theater. In December of 1992, this
particular theater was the venue for the Royal Variety Show, which members of the Royal Family
actually attended. There was a Royal Box up high above stage right, and in the corridor which led to it
there was the Royal Toilet.

I was assigned to stand outside the Royal Toilet, and if one of the Royal Family needed to go to the loo,
I was to open the door for them. Princess Diana and Prince Charles walked *right past me* close
enough for me to have touched them (but I didn't). No one used the Royal Toilet, thank god, 'cause
that door was heavy.

It was the last public appearance of the Royal Couple before they announced their decision to

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Working in a theatrical production company, I've had all kinds of
brushes with fame, but mainly in the form of "Hi, nice to meet you,
please sign this contract here, here and here, and initial here, here
and here. Leave forms a, b, c and d with my secretary and if you
should have any questions, she or the the paralegal can assist you.
Thank you very much." I gave that stinking speech so much that I
still have it memorised.

I also lived in a theatrical building of sorts, lots of actors and
dancers and NY soap star types lived in our apartment building. I
guess the most famous would be Nathan Lane (who lived next door) and
Brian Benben and Madeline Stowe who lived one floor from the
penthouses and were often caught making out in the elevators.

I've been able to finagle several meet-n-greets with my favourite
band (Duran Duran) to the point where they now know me, which is
fun. The only celeb I haven't yet brushed that I'd like to is Kevin
Spacey. I could've joined a friend at this year's Tony
Awards but decided not to, and she literally walked into him in the
lobby. (Watch Dreama kick herself over that bad decision from now
until. . . )

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

ummm. well. i did get a big hug from the lead-singer girl of 'lamb' on
monday night.

but of course, they're not that huge yet, and not a lot of people have
heard of them, so perhaps it doesn't count as a brush with fame. i was
pretty thrilled though...

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

A few. Four years ago, the band I was in at the time did a support
slot for Peter Frampton (yeah!) at the Amsterdam Paradiso. At one
point, we were allowed inside his dressing room for a photo
opportunity, but when we walked out, a security guy ripped the film
from the camera. Still, we had a great time laughing at this guy who
still claims to be a huge star 20 years after the fact.

A year later, we had a gig at a small place in Amsterdam, and
afterwards were informed that Keanu Reeves was in the audience for at
least part of it. He was on tour with Dog Star at the time and had
done a show at the infamous Milky Way earlier that evening. I didn't
see him myself, but people assured me afterwards it was him, and he
was even tapping his foot!

But the best one was definitely Lou Reed. I literally bumped into him
when he was just leaving his Amsterdam hotel, while on a promo visit
to the Netherlands some 9 years ago. Tiny little detail: the hotel,
the most luxurious one in the entire city, was located smack in the
middle of the red light district! I apologized for bumping into him.
He was really cool about it and just ignored me.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

PS - what was I doing in the red light district? On my way to class,
OK? One of the most important university buildings in the city is
located there as well! ;-)

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

When I was three years old, we were living in Pari and along with many
other ex-pat families we were invited to the Christmas party at the
American embassy. Part of the evening's entertainment for children, was
a reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by 30s film star Olivia
deHavilland. At that stage in my life, I knew every word of "'Twas the
Night Before Christmas" by heart, so when they asked for a volunteer to
help Miss deHavilland read, you better bet I had my hand up in the air.
She picked me out of the sea of faces in a lamp-lit room. All I
remember is an older woman with a nice smile and a pleasant voice and
how much fun it was to show off how well I could recite that poem.
There were also extremely good brownies at that party.

During my sophomore year at Smith, various background shots were done
on our campus for the Bill Pullman/Alec Baldwin/Nicole Kidman thriller
Malice. For several weeks, the gateposts were covered over with signs
for "Westerley College" The sign posts are still stained a vaguely puke
green from whatever adhesive they used on the stone. There was also a
scene shot in one of favorite cafes in Amherst, but it didn't make into
the final cut of the film. A completely impossible and improbable bike
ride did though, a series of segmented shots of a girl on a bike riding
through Northampton that could only happen if you had a transporter.

Last year, the film "Random Hearts" due out this weekend, with Harrison
Ford and Kristin Scott-Thomas, was shooting on location in DC and
Baltimore. Several sequences were shot on 23rd St. in front of the
building I worked in. Mr. Ford was there for two days and Ms. Scott-
Thomas for one. The street was closed off for a large portion of the
day and was MOBBED with people from the surrounding buildings crowded
onto the sidewalks to watch the action. Many people approached Mr. Ford
and he was uniformly gracious and funny with everyone. At one point,
they were shooting a scene of him crossing the street and looking up
towards the building across the street. A knot of us were standing
right there across the shooting line so in essence we were what he was
looking at through that whole segment. I didn't ask for an autograph or
anything, they had a lot of stuff to shoot and it was a mob scene down
there during each break. We also got good views of director Sydney
Pollack and Ms. Scott-Thomas got to run out of the condo across the
street at least twenty times while Mr. Ford followed her in a Jeep. It
was really cool to be able to just look out the window and observe the
movie-making process. They did lots and lots of takes of very short
bits of acting. Our deli downstairs did record business for the three
days of shooting and Carmen and I got to see the big ballon lights they
use to make it look like daylight/morning during night shoots. It made
the whole street look kind of magical, with all these massive lit
ballons hanging along its length amidst the trees.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

Elton John remodeled the house across the street from mine in Atlanta.
It was in a neighborhood of 30's bungalows -- nothing fancy -- which
we thought was pretty cool. We were told it was going to be his
guesthouse/pool house. He has a penthouse condo here. A friend of his
lived there the whole time. It was great for us because when we
looked out our windows we saw this lovely house with all this great
landscaping, but it made me laugh to think that when they looked out
their windows they saw our little house, with our pitiful
"landscaping." Anyway, when my first son was about 2 months old, the
guesthouse was still under construction and I went out to get the
mail. I had been staining lawn furniture and I probably hadn't slept
for weeks. I looked like something your neighbor's cat left on your
front porch. And, of course, I ran into Elton. He was with two other
people and they never even acknowledged my presence -- Even though
they were standing in my yard at the time. On the other hand, the way
I looked I probably wouldn't have acknowledged me either. I saw him
one other time at the house, but mostly we just saw expensive cars
going in and out and one day they threw a party and used our driveway
for their valet parking -- of course, without asking us. The house has
since been sold and we moved, too.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

And I somehow forgot the -s- on Paris. Guh. What's with this delete
key?

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

Do politicians count? I'm going to say yes, and tell you that I was
in slapping distance of Newt Gingrich this summer on Capitol Hill in
Washington, DC. I was walking in the crosswalk with some
international students, and he walked toward us. When I realized it
was him- I just stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed and I think I may
have said, "Oh my GOD!" or something similar, but I definitely know I
was pretty loud about it. He made eye contact with me and gave a
smirky little grin. It may have been a perfectly normal smile, but
since he isn't on my favorite people list, it was smirky. When we
got across the street, I tried to explain to the students who he
was. No luck.

Last summer in NYC, I saw Fyvush Finkle (spelling?)- the older wild
lawyer guy on the old show "Picket Fences". Remember it? I liked
that show a lot. He had his arm linked with an older woman, and they
both were making it slowly down the street. I and some international
students (again) were walking toward him and his companion, and I did
the dropped jaw, bug-eyed thing. They passed. I ran after them, I
stopped him, shook his hand, and told him that I loved his work
on "Picket Fences". He smiled and said thank you. Other students
that were on this NYC trip saw Madonna get out of a limo in another
part of Manhattan. They couldn't get over it! I was happy for
them. Great stories to take home with them.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

I was once introduced to Troy Donahue. (Handsome blonde movie star of
the 50's and 60's) I was working as the receptionist at Boston
University's Orthodontic Clinic (circa 1963) and one of the students
was doing his research on "what jaw, mouth, teeth characteristics are
considered as the norm for perfect or beautiful or whatever" (I'm sure
his stated thesis was worded much better than that) I do believe he
was a star-struck dentist! He contacted every beauty queen and movie
star that came to Boston that year and managed to get quite a few of
them in for head shots and x-rays of their jaw and teeth structure.
When I heard that Troy Donahue was coming I begged him to introduce
me. So he did. I was completely tongue-tied ....had nothing to
say....I may have managed a weak Hi. So, please, don't offer to
introduce me to Robert Redford. I don't think I would do much better
today! :)

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

Because of my job, I meet semi-famous musicians semi-regularly. I'm jaded enough at this point that I only get excited when I get a chance to meet someone kinda cool (like Rufus Wainwright) or when I *miss* the opportunity to meet someone kinda cool (like when I gave away my backstage pass at Foo Fighters show, only to find out later that Minnie Driver was there (she was dating the drummer)).

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

I saw Edmund Muskie in the airport in Portland, Maine, once. Maine
isn't exactly a hotbed of celebrity spottings, so that was pretty
cool. I also met Vincent Price, long, long ago, when he came to my
hometown to give a lecture on cooking.

My other brush with fame involves someone who is probably not that
famous outside of DE and PA, John DuPont. He shot and killed an
Olympic wrestler on the grounds of his estate, then barricaded himself
in the manor house for days. That estate is just a few miles away
from where I live, and we had all those big network trucks blocking
traffic all weekend long. Most people in town knew that he was a
lunatic -- he had a tank and used to drive it around the estate, for
example. (He also drove it on the streets.) The family had lots of
horses, and I used to work on the estate during the summer, exercising
the horses. I only met John D. once, though. He didn't mix with the
help.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

I had to think about this one for a while, apparently because I don't
get out of the house often enough :) I met Rick Fox (formerly of the
Boston Celtics, now of the LA Lakers, and newly Mr. Vanessa Williams)
at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. I got his autograph, he seemed
pretty nice. At the same game, Boston Celtics coach Rick Pitino was
also sitting a couple of rows behind us, so of course I went up to
him, too, and begged for an autograph. Being the daughter of a rabid
college basketball fan, Rick Pitino's name was often heard in our
house when I was growing up, so I was pretty happy to meet him, and
he was also very cool. The Seattle Mariner's dugout was right in
front of us, so we got a lot of Ken Griffey Jr. viewing in, along
with the rest of his team.

I got to shake President Clinton's hand when he was running for
president the first time around. He was at a Democratic rally in
Vermont, and being the naive idealistic college sophomore that I was
at the time, I went, got to see him, and get a "thank you very much"
as he walked on by. I now wonder where that hand had been before...

I got to see the replica boats they made for the next George Clooney
movie, "The Perfect Storm." We went to Gloucester a couple of weeks
ago for a whale watch (stop laughing, they're a lot of fun) and there
they were, along with the crew packing up to leave. No movie stars,
though. I guess one of the boats was the one they actually lost at
sea, so having a replica around was really freaky for the natives.

You'd think with all the movies they shoot in the Boston/North Shore
of Massachusetts areas these days, I'd see a lot more, but I never do.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

This is weird, I just wrote about this last night...

Two days ago, I waited on Grammy-winning jazz guitarist Earl Klugh at the music store I manage, and not knowing who he was, I gave him one of my snobby little "here's what I like about the artist whose CD you are buying" presentations. (It gets boring sometimes, I get starved for conversation.) The artist I was talking up was Keith Jarrett; I'm sure Earl Klugh knows him well. I felt a little stupid when I saw his name on his credit card. Really nice guy, though.

I worked at a summer music festival for seven years and got to meet lots of people there, including Garrison Keillor and Yo-Yo Ma. And in college, they filmed a talk show scene (which was never in the movie) for "JFK" at my college in Texas, and I got to see Kevin Costner (and his entourage, what a freak), Oliver Stone (who looks like a gorilla in person, but who seemed like a friendly guy) and we met John Laroquette (who was REALLY cool but whose scene wasn't in the movie, alas for him).

-- Anonymous, October 09, 1999

i am kid

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001

i am kid that is stupid

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001

My brush with fame is actually pretty embarassing. In September my
boyfriend had just moved to Vancouver. The first time we went
downtown, I was pointing at, you know, the sites, and telling him
what they were. We were waiting for a light to turn green, and I
pointed at the big domed stadium. Right then a guy also waiting for
the light with us turned and gave me a big cheesy grin and said "hey,
how's it going" in a big cheesy voice. I said something like "um,
good" and was about to offer him my bus transfer (so he could resell
it to someone else- he looked kind of grubby) when the light changed
and we could cross the street. About a block later my boyfriend told
me that the guy was Michael Moriarty (used to be on Law and Order).
He apparently thought I was pointing at him, and not a big puffy dome.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001

My wife and I rented a studio on the same floor as Edward Burns.
Burns bought his place just after Brothers McMullen hit. We saw him
around the neighborhood a few times with his girlfriend of the
time, who had played his girlfriend in Bros. McM. In an apparently
unrelated sighting, Drew Barrymore took our cab one day as we
got out of it in front of our building.

Because I work in the NBC tower and the whole building is supposedly
on one elevator bank during nights and weekends, I've seen a few
celebs. My favorite was a late-night trip alone with Mira Sorvino.
I've seen several news people -- Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Mike
Wallace, and once Walter Cronkite -- and a lot of senators and White
House aides of the sort who make "Meet the Press"-type appearances.
When I worked a lot of late Saturday nights in 1996-98, I often
got caught in the elevator with mad Saturday Night Live crew members
carrying props and graphics for the show. Never saw the guest of the
night, which makes me think there must be a special "celebrity-only"
elevator somewhere. . .